If you have been to an asset management training or have considered or even started asset management activities, you probably have generated many questions about the process. For example, “Where is a good place to start?” or “What options do I have for mapping my system?” or “How do I number my assets?” You may have specific questions regarding something you’ve tried and had difficulty with. This webinar will provide you with a unique opportunity to ask any and all questions regarding asset management or implementing asset management. An asset management practitioner – Ross Waugh – with extensive experience implementing the process in New Zealand will be here to answer your questions. This will be a great chance to hear information regarding what has worked elsewhere in the world and to learn from those experiences. If you don’t have any questions of your own, you can still greatly benefit from listening in to the questions of others. This webinar will be hosted by the Environmental Finance Center Network.

Does your system charge your customers the correct amount for water? This webinar will help systems answer this question by demonstrating the Water & Sewer Rates Analysis Model, an Excel tool developed by the Environmental Finance Center at The University of North Carolina. This free, basic cash-flow modeling tool allows water systems to input their current rate structure, estimates on number of customers and water use, and the expected costs for the system. The tool then automatically projects the end-of-year fund balance for the next several years, indicating whether revenues will be high enough to cover expected expenses. Users can then enter in another rate structure and compare the end-of-year fund balance side-by-side to the one projected using current rates. This allows users to try out scenarios of adjusting their rates to meet their financial goals in the next few years, and can help users determine whether they need to adjust rates, and by how much, in order to achieve financial sufficiency. The tool can be used by systems that set volumetric charges for water as well as systems that only charge flat monthly fees.

This is an opportunity for your water system to participate in a training event that will help the utility answer the question, “How can we spend our limited dollars to have the greatest impact?” This webinar will provide an overview of Asset Management and discuss the first core component of Asset Management, The Current State of the Assets.

This webinar will focus on strategically deploying water loss detection methodologies. Often times, people believe they either conduct leak detection activities on the whole system or not at all. There are several other possibilities of deploying water loss detection methodologies. The decision-making process will be explored in this webinar.

This webinar will focus on the four methods of reducing real water loss: responding to known leaks faster, asset management, pressure management, and finding hidden leaks. The emphasis will be on tools and techniques that can be used to find hidden leaks including considerations regarding the use of these techniques (such as: pipe types and sizes, cost, personnel requirements, system requirements etc.)

The EFCN is hosting a three-part water loss reduction webinar series for small systems serving 10,000 or fewer customers. This series will offer participants an introduction to establishing an effective water loss control program at their water system. Participants will learn about the different parts of the water balance equation, performing a water audit at their system and how to begin to address non-revenue water including both apparent losses and real losses (leakage). The first webinar will focus on establishing the baseline of your water loss. It will include information regarding water loss auditing.

What stories move you to action? What images trigger your emotions? Why do you support one issue but oppose another? Whether you realize it or not, effective messaging is often in play whether you are choosing a bag of chips or pledging your hard earned dollars to a cause. In this webinar we will show you some basic messaging concepts including the use of powerful images that evoke the critical values of your audience. You will also be introduced to successful water conservation and improvement campaigns that use both humor and message to convince their communities to pay for better systems. In the end, this webinar will provide a simple three-step structure to help you re-imagine your story and get the job done.

Have you ever wondered why, when all the facts support your project you still can’t get the approval or the votes to move it to implementation? When you have all the facts in your back pocket and have presented all the data to your audience, why does it seem that – more often than not – the line item goes to someone else? In this webinar you will be introduced to how your audience perceives your data and how to present your information in a more compelling format. From pie charts to columns and busted pipes to sinkholes, find out how to tell your story so that the next project that gets approved has your name on it.

Small drinking water systems have many options for partnership and regionalization. This webinar will explore the water company model, where a single entity centrally manages several water systems that are not necessarily physically interconnected. Through central management, the water company is able to control costs, access certified system operators and achieve economies of scale for the small systems it operates. The webinar will feature one water company, Aqua North Carolina, that manages almost 800 public water systems in the state. We will discuss the advantages and challenges of the water company model and highlight what makes a system attractive for a water company to acquire. This particular regionalization model may be most attractive to system managers that want to transfer their assets to another system but do not have a viable local option for a physical interconnection.

Small water systems should consider various methods of partnering with other water systems as a way to control costs. One option for systems is to merge with either one or multiple other systems to form a new, larger entity that is more able to take advantage of economies of scale. This webinar will highlight the creation of the Lowcountry Regional Water System in South Carolina from five small town systems in Hampton County and will focus on the financial advantages and challenges of system mergers.